To boldly go where no storm chaser has gone before!!
Funny you should say that, because for a long time now I've been thinking about writing a short story or maybe even a novel about storm chasing on a planet other than Earth. This would be pure SF, obviously, but think of the possibilities... Imagine a basically Earth-like planet, but with a GOM or larger sized sea that is heated throughout by submerged volcanism - we'll call it The Sea of Fire - with off-the-chart SSTs producing dewpoints far beyond anything seen on Earth... And of course this Sea of Fire sits just downwind of a Himalaya-sized mountain range, which is also where the planet's jetstream equivalent likes to set up in season, a jet with wind speeds greater than what we see here on Earth... Think of the resulting convective outbreaks! Routine F6s, anyone? With an F7 not completely out of the question? Supersonic winds in the tornadic vortices, earth scoured all the way down to bedrock, destruction and spectacle aplenty, especially when you add in mysterious alien ruins that occasionally get uncovered by these storms...
If I were a better writer with a bit more experience, I would have written this story already. I know similar stuff has been published in the SF genre in the past, Barnes' "Mother of Storms" and Sterling's "Heavy Weather" come to mind, but both of those are set on Earth, albeit a future Earth where the climate has changed for the worse. I like to think I could add something unique to the basic theme, create a character with a true storm chaser's viewpoint, someone whose obsession with supercells takes him all the way to a distant star system in search of the ultimate tornado...
If only I was a more confident writer. But I just might give it a try anyway, just to see if I could do it right.
